//------------------------------// // Clockwork // Story: The Fluttershy of Tomorrow // by Amneiger //------------------------------// Clack, clack. Fluttershy didn’t know when she had fallen asleep. She was on the couch, facing the window. It wasn’t so bright outside as it had been when she had first come here; maybe there was still night in this place, even though there was no sun. She wondered if there was a moon here. Clack, clack. Fluttershy wondered what that clacking noise was. She sat up on the couch, rubbing her eyes. There was some sort of clockwork ball about the size of an apple trying to climb the legs of the table. It had four legs that it balanced on like a spider, and a single wide glass eye on top of its body. As it moved about it turned a bit towards the light, and Fluttershy saw that some of the gears weren’t moving; they must be jammed. The clockwork ball wrapped its legs around the table leg and began trying to pull itself up. It only made it a few inches before its legs slipped and it slid back down onto the floor. It rolled about for several seconds before righting itself. The ball clacked clacked to itself for a moment, moving its legs as if checking that nothing had broken, before skittering back to the table for another try. Something about the way it moved reminded Fluttershy of an animal trying to climb kitchen cabinets to reach some food on a high shelf. What did it want? The only thing on the table was the box that was sitting on top of it. Was this thing an animal? If it was, would her special talent work on it? If it did, then maybe her intuition was right and it really was after food. Fluttershy flew off the couch and onto the table. The clockwork ball looked up and saw it, and it stopped in the middle of the floor to look at her. The box on the table was a slightly water-damaged cardboard packing box, with black stains where the water had dried. Fluttershy couldn’t imagine how a clockwork thing could eat a cardboard box. She took a closer look at it to make sure, and realized that there was a faint bluish-white glow shining out from between the flaps. Fluttershy opened it. There was a book inside with a hard brown cover, like the textbooks from back when she was in school. There was no title, only a picture of a lightning bolt arcing between two metal poles. The glow was coming from inside the book, casting electric blue light onto the sides of the box. The light was really pretty, and Fluttershy wondered why the ball wanted this. Fluttershy opened it; maybe if she looked at it she would know why. The letters on the page glowed with the same electric light. The book had no cover page and no introduction. It simply leapt straight into what appeared to be its subject matter. P = VI where P is power in watts, V is voltage in volts, and I is current in amperes R = V / I where R is resistance in ohms (see previous equation for V and I) Apparent power squared is equal to real power squared plus reactive power squared The horsepower of an electric motor is equal to volts times amperes times efficiency in decimal form, divided by 746 As soon as her eyes fell on the words, there was a zap and a spark of lightning leapt from the book to her hoof, shocking her – She blinked bright blue out of her eyes, and the page was blank. What just happened? The words had looked almost like some of the equations Fluttershy had seen in Twilight’s books on magic. Had that been some kind of magical knowledge? If it was, this was a really strange way to store it. There was the sound of rapid tapping on the ground, and Fluttershy looked over the edge of the table. The clockwork ball was more agitated, taking quick steps to the right and left like a crab and looking up at her. It must have sensed that she had opened the box, and she was now sure that it had been looking for the book. Fluttershy closed the book. Maybe if she didn’t look at the words it wouldn’t – There was another zap, and her hooves almost slipped. Her mind cleared, and Fluttershy found herself gripping the book with both hooves. The book was noticeably dimmer than it was before; the energy within it was definitely going to disappear soon if she kept touching it. The clockwork ball was clicking and clacking at her, jumping up and down on its thin legs. She gently floated down, put the book on the ground in front of the clockwork ball, and took a few steps back. The clockwork ball leapt onto the book, gripping it edges with its front legs. A pair of small fangs grew out of the front of it, and it pressed the fangs down into the cover of the book. The lightning was drawn upwards, through the pages and onto the surface of the book, before a short of arc of electricity formed outwards from the cover into the ball. In a few moments the book was no longer glowing, and the ball let go of it. Its little fangs retracted themselves; a few sparks passed over its body, and with a clack the jammed gears unlocked themselves and began ticking again. The clockwork ball jumped off the top of the book, so that there was a clear line of sight between itself and Fluttershy. It started to click and wave its arms in the air, and Fluttershy realized that it was trying to talk to her. The ball didn’t talk like the animals back home. In Equestria, she could talk about their homes, their families, what they remembered and what they wanted as if they were speaking clear Equestrian. All she was getting here was a much more vague sense of what it was trying to say. She was reasonably certain that it was trying to say thank you. “You’re welcome…uh…” she said. She didn’t know its name. “What’s your name?” she asked. It paused, rubbing one leg against the front part of its body like someone deep in thought. Finally it shrugged. “You don’t have a name? Oh, I…” Fluttershy had never encountered this kind of situation before. Back in Equestria, all the animals had called themselves something. An animal without a name seemed just…strange, somehow. “Do you want a name?” It paused again, thinking, and Fluttershy got the impression that it had never thought about actually naming itself before. Finally it responded with a rapid series of complex clicks. Almost all of them made no sense to Fluttershy; it sounded like a long string of technical terms. The only word she recognized was the last one: Orphan. “Oh! I’m really sorry to hear that,” Fluttershy said. “But if you had parents, they had to have named you, right?” The clockwork ball shook its head vigorously, and for a moment Fluttershy thought that the ball was telling her that its parents had not named it. Then it clicked out another sentence: it had never had any parents. Orphan wasn’t a family status, but a type. Rank one orphan. “Uh…” Fluttershy turned the ball’s words over in her head, trying to understand what that meant. “What do you mean?” It stopped and thought again. Finally, it just repeated the same list of technical terms it had given her last time. Fluttershy still didn’t understand any of it. “I’m sorry,” Fluttershy said. “I really don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Maybe later.” The ball nodded; it seemed it was all right with this. As she talked, she took a closer look at the ball. There was a definite difference between the clockwork ball and the rest of this place. Everything else was solid stone or steel, and the two-legged metal creatures from before had been built from stamped iron and electricity. This strange thing was built a thousand polished gears of brass and copper, and it was clear that a great deal of craftsmanship had gone into its creation. Fluttershy was pretty sure that it must have come from somewhere outside the city. If it had come here from somewhere else, maybe it knew a way out? “Excuse me,” she said. “Could you help me? Please? I need to go somewhere…” Fluttershy hesitated. Maybe it might know a way back to Equestria? There didn’t seem to be any harm in asking. “Have you heard of a place called Equestria?” The clockwork ball thought for a moment, then shook its head. “Oh," Fluttershy said, her head drooping from disappointment. "Well, maybe you can help me find someplace safe? Somewhere those big tall metal…” Fluttershy tried to think of a better word for the metal creatures from before besides ‘creatures.’ “…Where the metal soldiers won’t find me?” The clockwork ball stood again in thought, tilting its body left and right like a dog trying to comprehend something. Finally it turned around and scurried back towards the door in the wall. It stopped in front of the door, turned around to face Fluttershy, and waited. Fluttershy walked over to the door. There was some kind of doorknob that looked like a bar, and she reached up and pulled down on it. The door swung open, revealing complete darkness beyond. There was just enough ambient light from the window for her to see that it was probably a hallway beyond. “Um…” Fluttershy took a step back. “I can’t see in the dark…” The clockwork ball looked into the hallway, turned back to her, and clicked. It didn’t seem to have too much trouble with the darkness. “Uh…” Fluttershy looked around, trying to think of some other way to do this, and her eyes settled on the window. “Can I just, um, wait for you outside?” The ball considered it, and then nodded. It skittered out the door, and its clacking noises faded into the darkness. Fluttershy flew out the window and landed on the ground next to the building. She looked up at the sky; she felt as if anyone could see her out here. She shrank back against the building, as if it could hide her. A few minutes later, she heard a faint clicking noise from inside the building she was next to. A small grate on the bottom of the wall was pushed open, and the clockwork ball came clattering out. It looked left and right before seeing her, and it waved a leg to beckon her over. Fluttershy walked over to where it was, and it turned and began making its way down the street, staying near the buildings. Fluttershy followed it. The buildings they were walking past were becoming different from the ones from before; they were getting taller, and instead of being made from stone they were built of metal and glass. Instead of the whole buildings having collapsed, it looked like just some of the upper floors had come down into the street or had collapsed in on themselves without destroying the lower floors. Fluttershy kept glancing around uneasily, trying to keep an eye out more of the soldiers. The clockwork ball seemed to be doing the same thing; every once in a while it would stop behind a wall or pile of rubble and carefully glance around before continuing. Neither of them saw anything. They passed by a statue in the middle of an empty town square. It was of another bipedal creature; she was wearing a long lab coat and glasses, and her hair was tied into a stiff bun. The statue had once been crafted from what looked like steel, but it was now covered in a thick layer of old dust. There was an inscription on a plaque at the base of the statue. ELSPETH ST. CROIX MOTHER OF MEGIDDO SCIENCE TRIUMPHANT Fluttershy stood and looked at the statue. Part of her wondered how a place such as this would still make a statue written in Equestrian, but another part wondered who or what Elspeth St. Croix had been. She didn’t think she would find an answer here. She turned and moved on. The sky was starting to darken. Instead of being the inferno it had looked like when she first arrived, it was cooling down to a dirty navy blue. There still didn’t seem to be a moon, or even stars, just the sky changing color. Somehow there was still light coming from the sky, letting her see the world around her as if it was night back in Equestria. It was definitely getting colder; Fluttershy hoped that wherever the clockwork ball was taking her had a fireplace. They were getting closer to one of the silvery towers Fluttershy had seen earlier; it was looming in the sky, and she had to crane her head back to see the top of it. It was surreal; she was used to seeing tall buildings such as the towers of Canterlot from a distance, but not even Canterlot had been this tall. Seeing one of these impossible towers so close was unsettling. Finally, they were a block from the base of the tower. The clockwork ball stopped in front of what looked like it might have been a storefront a long time ago, but the glass was missing and the display cases empty. The ball turned around and waited for her. Fluttershy reached the small ball. “What do we do now?” she asked. The ball turned and walked through the broken windows, deeper into the shop. Fluttershy looked up at the darkening sky. It was dark in the store, and it was only going to get darker as the daylight faded. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be in there, in the dark. Who knew what kind of strange things she might wander into without being able to see? She might fall down a hole, or hurt herself by walking into a wall, or stumble into another soldier… The clockwork ball had stopped at the back of the store; she could only tell where it was because the fading daylight faintly glinted off its body. Fluttershy looked nervously at the sky again before following it. She didn’t have any other ideas. The floor was covered with scattered pieces of broken glass and small piles of dust. She stepped over a fallen machine that was a glass box filled with gearwork mechanisms. There was a white label on the front that she could still read in the fading light: “Penny Press Machine.” Fluttershy’s hoof nudged an unbroken piece of glass, and she looked down at it. It was a glass rectangle with a picture of a long skyline on it, prominently featuring a needle-like tower with a disc at the top as the tallest building. There were some words running along the bottom of the rectangle: “The Seattle of Tomorrow!” There were a few shopping baskets sitting on the ground next to the shelves. They were made from some kind of material she couldn’t recognize; it was hard, but not cold like metal was. Her hooves left small furrows in the dust as she walked. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness a little, and she saw that the clockwork ball was standing next to a doorframe and doorknob. She flew up and opened the door. The room beyond was completely dark. There was a faint blue strip on the ground where the light from outside fell into the room. As Fluttershy stood in the doorway, she saw that there seemed to be something on the floor just on the edge of the light. The clockwork ball skittered between her legs and over to the thing on the floor. It turned and waved to her. Fluttershy glanced over her shoulder at the street outside; it was still illuminated in the night’s light. Then she looked back at the small clockwork ball. Fluttershy swung the door all the way open, until it was against the wall. She took her hooves off of it and watched it for a moment. It stayed there. Good; at least there would be a little light in there. Fluttershy dropped back to the ground and walked into the room, towards the thing the clockwork ball was trying to show her. Even this close Fluttershy couldn’t quite tell what it was. She reached out with a hoof to feel it. It felt like some kind of handle, something she could just hook the edge of her hoof under. A trapdoor. Fluttershy could just squeeze one hoof into the handle. She reached down and pulled the trapdoor open. It was so bright! Fluttershy instinctively flinched away, covering her night-eyes with a foreleg. After a moment she took her foreleg away and opened her eyes again, looking at the trapdoor. There was a tunnel underneath the trapdoor, twice the height of a pony. The walls were made of steel, covered in vividly-colored stickers in yellow, red, and blue. Now that her eyes had adjusted, Fluttershy saw that the light wasn’t actually that bright; it had only looked like it compared to the night around her. There was a ladder leading down to it. The clockwork ball was already carefully picking its way down the ladder, spreading its legs between the rungs and the sides of the ladder. Fluttershy waited until it was all the way down before flying down the trapdoor. As she landed, the ball pointed upwards. “Oh, okay,” Fluttershy said, and she flew up and closed the trapdoor. Now that she was actually inside the tunnel, she could get a better look around. It was lit with bulbs behind green steel shades that hung from the ceiling on short cables. The bulbs were covered in a thick layer of dust; everything illuminated by them seemed to be in a strange half-shadow. The walls looked as if nobody had cleaned them in a long time. Grime had worked its way around the edges of the stickers. Fluttershy walked slowly, looking at the stickers as they pointing down corridors that went off into the distance. “Dimensional Engine 10B, 500 meters.” “Fremont Rapid Transit Stop 3, 90 meters.” “Duwamps Hydro-Locks, 100 meters.” She wondered what they were. “Where are we?” Fluttershy asked the ball. The ball clicked and clacked, and pointed up and down the tunnel. It was saying that they were in the access corridors. It started down the tunnel, turned around, and stood, waiting for her to follow. She walked after it. The access corridors were quiet. The only sound was the tap, tap, tap of the clockwork ball’s feet, the sound of Fluttershy’s own hooves, and the occasional sparking noise from the overhead lights. She kept looking over her shoulder; the silence made her nervous. “Where are we going?” she finally asked. The clockwork ball kept walking, but made more mechanical noises as it moved. It was saying some words she didn’t understand. “Um…excuse me please, but I’m not sure what you’re saying…?” The ball stopped and turned around. It began gesturing with its legs while making the same clacking noises over and over again. As far as Fluttershy could tell, it was trying to say a name, but she couldn’t tell what the name was. “I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I just don’t understand…maybe we should just keep going and talk about this later.” The ball tilted its body for a moment, but turned around and went on. They walked through the corridors for several minutes, turning left and right at various intersections. Fluttershy walked slowly, looking at the signs pointing down corridors that went off into the distance. She couldn’t read them, but she wondered what they were and where they led. The clockwork ball stopped in front of one section of wall and waited for her. Fluttershy walked up to it and looked around. “What’s here?” she asked. The clockwork ball pointed at the wall next to it, and after a moment Fluttershy realized that it was standing in front of a single slab of metal with a handle and hinges: a door. “Oh! Let me get that.” Fluttershy floated up, wrapped her hooves around the handle, and pulled. There was a solid curtain of purple and white sparks on the other side. They stretched up and down like a set of bars, completely covering the doorway. She couldn’t see a thing on the other side of it. Fluttershy reached out to touch the sparks. They were oddly cool and solid beneath her touch, like a steel wall. “Um…” Fluttershy said. She let go of the door, and it slowly swung back on its hinges and clanged shut. The clockwork ball was staring at the door with what could only be an expression of wide-eyed surprise on its face. “Was that supposed to be there?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer. The ball shook its head, still staring. It seemed to think for a moment, and then turned and hurried away down the corridor. Fluttershy jogged after it. The ball stopped in front of another door. Fluttershy flew up and pulled. It started to pull out, and for a brief moment Fluttershy thought it would work…only for the door to make a heavy clunk as it hit a lock. Fluttershy wrapped both hooves around the handle and flew harder, trying to put more force behind it. It wouldn’t budge, and finally she let go of it. “I don’t think it’s working.” The ball stood for a moment, twitching one leg against the other anxiously. It tapped one leg against the ground before making a decision and going off again. They passed by a ladder, going up to another trapdoor. It stood at the bottom of it, tapping its legs in thought, before making a decision and zipping off around the corner. The little ball was clearly nervous; it kept looking up and down the corridor and bouncing up and down a little nervously. “Are you all right?” Fluttershy asked. It nodded absent-mindedly even as it took another look down the corridor in front of them. “Are you sure?” she asked. It stopped, considering the question. Then it started speaking again, holding its legs stiff like a clock’s hands and pantomiming opening a door. It was more complicated then the kind of things it had been saying before, but after the last few sentences the ball had managed to convey to her it was easier for Fluttershy to understand the ball. The doors here were supposed to be open, and the two of them should have been out of here. Now they had been here too long for the ball’s liking; they were going to try one more exit and if that didn’t work, they would head back to the surface and look for somewhere to say the night. “Why have we been here too long?” Fluttershy asked. “What’s down here?” The ball was about to answer when it looked behind her and froze. Fluttershy looked over her shoulder at the corner they had just come around. She heard an echo of metal thumping on metal, in a regular pattern like footsteps. There was a circle of light shining on the wall, and she recognized the yellow lighting of one of the metal soldiers’ lamps. The ball stared for a moment longer, then turned and skittered away down the corridor. Fluttershy followed it, staying close behind the ball. After a minute, the ball stopped and held up a leg, telling her to wait. Fluttershy stood behind it as the ball as it stood with its head tilted. Fluttershy listened as well; she couldn’t hear the soldier anymore. The ball lowered its leg and started moving again. The ball led Fluttershy through another short series of corridors before finally reaching a door at the end of the hallway. The ball pointed at it, and Fluttershy opened it. The door lead out into a wide tunnel that stretched off to the left and the right. There were some flicking yellow-orange lights set into the wall, giving Fluttershy just enough light to see the shadows of pipes on the walls. The door was a foot above the ground, and Fluttershy hopped down to the ground. The ball jumped down after her, and pointed at the door again. Fluttershy flew up and pulled the door shut. “Are we there yet?” she asked the ball. It shook its head. They were still in the access corridors. The exit was nearby. The ball started down the tunnel, to her left, and Fluttershy followed it. The tunnel opened up into what looked like an enclosed train station. Two tracks ran down the middle of the station, leading to two tunnels at each end of the station; Fluttershy remembered that the train stations back in Equestria had also had two sets of tracks, one for each direction. The walls had once been white, but age and dust had taken their toll. Everything was chipped and stained. In a few places piles of rubble from the ceiling had fallen down, scattering debris and dust over everything. There were green frames for what Fluttershy thought must have been train schedules once, but the signs inside of them were gone. Some blank signs hung from the ceiling, with black screens on them. Fluttershy saw a few small things that had been abandoned in the wreckage: a stained and shredded bag, a small black plastic rectangle, a wicker basket that had rolled next to the tracks. To her left and right were stairs leading to an upper floor, with another set of stairs at the other end of the station. The ball walked to the stairs, and Fluttershy followed it. The stairs led out onto an upper mezzanine. The once-pristine dark tile floor was coated with dust, and the ceiling above had cracked, revealing gray stone threaded with black metal rods. There was another mezzanine on the other side of the station; Fluttershy could have taken off and flown there. There were two open entrances leading out, each with an empty sign hanging over it. “Which way?” Fluttershy said. The ball pointed at the entrance to her left and shook its head, and then pointed at the entrance to her right and nodded. The entrance to her left took them back to the ruins, but the entrance to her right took them to where they needed to go. The ball started towards the entrance to the right, and Fluttershy was just starting to follow it when she heard the clanking sound of metal footsteps from the entrance head. A circle of yellow lamplight shone on the ground just inside the entrance to the left, coming down from above. The ball immediately sped up into a run. Fluttershy followed it through the entrance. They were at the base of a set of stairs, heading up. The ball began clambering up the stairs, and Fluttershy came after it. They reached the top, and Fluttershy looked around. They were in an entryway; the walls around them were metal bars covered in translucent glass. Fluttershy could only see some vague black outlines against a blue background through the glass. There was a glass doorway at the other end of the entryway. This one she could see through, and Fluttershy saw more crumbling ruins against the night sky. “Are you sure this is the right place?” Fluttershy said. The ball nodded and motioned towards the door. Fluttershy flew up and opened it. The first thing Fluttershy saw was the moon. It took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t actually looking directly at the moon; it was actually the reflection of the moon in…a glass tower in the sky? There were some weird metal poles at the edge of the…street? There were what had to be lamps on the top of the poles, casting a faintly orange light on everything. There was a faint rushing sound in the distance, as if there was a constant breeze somewhere. Cool air flowed through the door. Above ground the air had been hot and dry with dust, and in the corridors it had been stale, bottled for too long with no movement. This smelled…cleaner. Fresher. More real. This wasn’t the ruins. What was this place? Fluttershy looked back through the door. Through the glass door she saw the ruins, but through the doorway she saw the city. Whatever it was, it looked a lot more hospitable than the ruins. She let go of the door handle so that she could fly through. A familiar black silhouette stepped in front of the open doorway, shining the lamp it held in its hands into her face.